Newcastle Brown Ale Chocolate Cake

I was born and brought up in the north-east on the industrial banks of the River Tyne. Anybody from Newcastle or its surrounding environs is dubbed a Geordie, as is our distinctive and apparently pleasant accent!

When I was growing up, my dad was glued to a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale. A pub dinner ended with one. Watching the football ended with one. Visiting the bookies ended with one. The smell reminds me of him.

It's seen as a drink of the working men, though nowadays it's more widespread and consumed by younger folks - I've even served a few bottles down here in Wales amazingly!

I'm gonna be honest with you - I actually hate the stuff! I'm not a beer/cider/stout/ale drinker, but I'll tell you something interesting: I love Chocolate Guinness Cake! Yet you won't find me ordering a pint of Guinness anytime soon.

When baked, the bitterness of the Guinness is apparently erased, yet it gives a chocolate cake a turbo-dark-fudge-boost. It's really quite amazing and I'm extremely happy for it.

So I wanted to see if the same could be done for Newc'y Broon, and whether I could create a damp, dark, mulchy chocolate cake with a smack of real Geordie craftsmanship.

Slowly add this to hot ale mixture and mix until creamy, like a manilla envelope.

5. Snap your dark chocolate into chunks.

Zap it in the microwave, making sure to give it a stir-up every 10-20 seconds to make sure it all gets a fair zap of radiation.

Once you have a dark, glossy bath of chocolate, pour it into your eggy ale mixture and mix until you have an expansive lake of sweet and chocolatey ale.

6. Now sieve the flour and sodium bicarbonate into the chocolate-ale mixture bit by bit and fold it in slowly.

Once it's all folded in, blitz it with an electric whisk to beat up any lumps, or if you don't have one, use a hand-whisk with a well-trained wanking arm!

7. Once it's all thick and shiny, pour your cake mixture into your greased tin, slide it into the oven and prepare for it to be birthed in 45-60 minutes.

8. Once your cake has swelled and blessed your house with a sweet, toffee aroma, remove your creation from the oven.

Don't panic too much if remains persistently damp or slightly wobbly in the middle, it will firm up I swear!

Set it aside and let it cool completely for an hour or two. Be patient now, if you try and remove it while it's warm, it'll most likely break. Don't do it. Wait. It'll only end in tears.

Once cool, carefully pop it out of its tin.

9. To finish it off, add a creamy whip of vanilla frosting to make a frothy head!

What you'll end up with is an incredibly dense, fudgy chocolate cake with a hint of toffee and spice from the brown ale. As I hoped, the bitterness of the ale had disappeared completely and left lots of good things behind!

Fridge it, share it (if you can bear to) and have it for breakfast the next day!

If you're an avid drinker of Newcastle Brown Ale, or know somebody you is, this one will go down a treat! I insist you give it a go!